These came from the west, slithering across the southwest corner of the plateau, from which they did not have to cross the Allegheny Front, from the big city where they made money, big money, and they came to Cambria County not to work but to play. They secretly bought the reservoir that was constructed for the water needs of the people of Johnstown who had come the hard way across the Front from the east to work and who were working and they secretly bought the land. They turned the South Fork Dam area into the most private club in America and called it the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club and threatened to shoot trespassers from Johnstown and they renamed the water Lake Conemaugh. They made the dam more suitable for their play and made the dam more dangerous for the people of Johnstown and they sailed their boats on Lake Conemaugh and in the valley beneath the people of Johnstown could see the amazing sight of sails on the mountain that they could get no closer to without being shot.
In the Spring of that year the rain came and it came on and came on and in the valley the streets of Johnstown became flooded and still the rain came. Up the mountain at Lake Conemaugh the water began to run over the dam face which had been lowered by those from the west for their play and at 3:10 in the afternoon the dam "simply moved away" and 20,000,000 tons of water moved into the valley and the people of Johnstown who had seen sailboats on the mountain now saw a "death mist" come before them and then the water and 2,200 of them died.
These came from the west, from Pittsburgh. They were Andrew Carnegie, the richest man in the world and Andrew Mellon, third richest in America and Henry Clay Fricke and Philander Knox and their families and friends. They never went back to Johnstown and left a slimy trail behind them. Their club and their lake gone they abandoned their multi-room, three-story "cottages" and simply moved away.
